ZenCash has been in operation for 6 weeks now. It’s been an exciting time! We have our team working together to implement the capabilities outlined in the Zen White Paper, available at the ZenCash website. We have a roadmap in the white paper, and are making slight adjustments to it. Before discussing the roadmap, it is worthwhile to review where we are right now.

Current Status of ZenCash

There is much more to a cryptocurrency than the software. Software is important, and without it nothing else works, but there are a lot of other things that have to happen to make a cryptocurrency successful. The current status and roadmap plans will discuss all these elements of success, including the software.

Software

Zen node software is based off of Zcash created from a chainsplit with Zclassic, with the addition of the full BIP-115 transaction replay protection so nothing done on the Zclassic blockchain affects ZenCash.

Secure Node Software is in development. Project manager and specification writer is contracted and working to develop the system for tracking and payment.

Private communications using Shielded Transaction Memo field works on desktop wallets. Users are able to send 512 Byte memos when sending from a shielded ZenCash address to a shielded ZenCash address

Exchanges for Trading and Investing

Governance and Treasury

Zen Blockchain Foundation created to promote the interests of Zen. The goal is to decentralize sooner rather than later, and part of that is creating a community organization that’s above any individual. The Zen Blockchain Foundation is a Delaware-based nonprofit corporation.

Currently, funds are being allocated and spent from the ZenCash Treasury for development on Zen software, marketing, and governance development by the founding members of the team – Rob Viglione, Rolf Versluis, and Jane Lippencott.

There is significant discussion that happens with many members of the Zen community as these decisions are made.

Zen Team

There are a lot of people working to make Zen a success! See the information and pictures of the current team on the ZenCash website. There are many people contributing in many ways right now.

The Board of Directors for the nonprofit are those we formerly launched as being part of either the Core Team or the DAO officers: Robert Viglione, Rolf Versluis, Jane Lippencott, Steven Nerayoff, and Carlo Vicari. These are founders and those with deep experience building cryptocurrencies from the ground up.

Marketing

Marketing has been driven by community members promoting and sharing information about ZenCash. This includes activity on the following platforms as well as interviews and conference attendance by Rob and Jane summarized in the ZenCash Blog.

ZenCash Roadmap

Zen Node Software

Zen node software will be upgraded soon to make some improvements. This will be a Hard Fork, meaning system node operators must upgrade to continue operating in consensus with the rest of the network. Summary of updates:

Bug fixes on P2SH multisig addresses to make them compatible with replay protection.

Upping the community funding to 12% of block rewards, adding the 3.5% secure node rewards to the current 8.5% pool. These funds will be held in escrow until the secure node network goes live.

Swapping out old community fund addresses for new ones.

Changing the requirement for community fund UTXO to first be sent to z_addresses. These funds will still all be sent through z_addresses before being spent to preserve fungibility, but requiring it in the first step limits multisig security.

Zen node communication encryption. Part of security is enabling encryption of communication traffic between nodes and wallets. This is the next item on the development list after. For a more complete explanation, and an example of a proposal for Bitcoin to get the upgrade, here is an article about a proposal BIP 151: The End-To-End Encryption Bitcoin Never Had – but Soon Will.

Zen Secure Nodes

An important part of ZenCash is operating Secure Nodes. Zen nodes run the software that makes the ZenCash system work. The purpose of ZenCash Secure Nodes is to create a network that is large and resilient enough to provide the foundation for a worldwide private communication and publishing system that is difficult to interrupt and gather data on. The ideal would be 1000-5000 secure nodes, each running on a separate system, all over the world.

There will be software applications that use the Zen node software as a service. This software will go through multiple versions as it becomes a decentralized and more automatic system. The plan for the first version is to get a reliable and centralized tracking and payment system operating. A brief description is:

ZenCash has contracted a Project Manager and Specification Writer who is working on publishing the specifics for development. Specifications are expected soon, and development, testing, then deployment will follow.

Wallet Software

Wallet upgrades and new wallets are on the way. Plans for wallets

The secure messaging and publishing capability of Zen takes place in the wallets. Multiple wallet improvements are in progress to make messaging a more user-friendly feature.

One to one message listings

One to many message capability

Integration with IPFS publishing (see below)

Secure Node staking feature in the ZenCash wallet

Mobile wallets for transparent addresses.

Hardware wallets for transparent addresses.

Also on the roadmap is the ability to conduct shielded transactions on mobile wallets and with hardware wallets.

InterPlanetary File System Integration for Publishing

In addition to private communications, an important part of the ZenCash roadmap is the ability to integrate IPFS publishing into the private one-to-one and one-to-many communications.

The big picture overview is that a user can publish something on IPFS, then message the IPFS hash to others using the ZenCash wallet where it can then be accessed.

There are other distributed file system projects that are able to be integrated as well. IPFS will be the first, and the capability to use it will be integrated into the wallet. It may be beneficial to have the Secure Nodes also operate as IPFS peers to ensure the anonymous publishing and access capabilities are available worldwide.

Proposals, Projects, and Funding

ZenCash has a great community. Supportive, positive, and encompassing many different talents. We are building a process for people to create proposals for work, to be paid for in ZenCash from the Treasury. These proposal would be discussed, a decision made on whether to fund or not, and would be turned into funded projects with deadlines.

This could be for feature development, companion software, marketing initiatives, or other types of activity that would help improve ZenCash

Treasury and Governance

The Zen Blockchain Foundation requires the ability to manage representative governance. The model and software for this needs to be built. This should be completed by the end of 2017.

The intention is to continue to develop the existing culture of an inclusive and egalitarian community of people working together to built something great. As Zen grows, there will be an ability to make changes to how it is set up and operated.

One example that gets debated quite a bit is the right amount of funds for Secure Nodes. Some people are happy with 42 Zen and 3.5% reward. Others think it should be higher. These are the types of things that can be changed in the future with an inclusive and representative governance system.

Documentation and International Support

ZenCash is focused on end-user adoption and creating systems that are reliable and useful for people worldwide. This means documentation in many different languages.

Systems and Procedures for Reliable Internal Operations

ZenCash already has multiple information systems that are used for communicating and organizing the activity of the community. These are going to grow and increase in complexity, especially as we add in requirements for resiliency and uptime.

Zen will need an IT staff that uses industry standard methods to ensure reliability, security, uptime, and usability of the ZenCash information systems. This means hiring a systems administrator and putting him or her to work.

Research & Development and Future Roadmap Planning

ZenCash is off to a great start leveraging the software created by Zcash. Over time, ZenCash will continue to add features specific to Zen. An example is the Secure Node system. There are other ways that Zen can improve as well. There should be a formal method of working with talented academic researchers to prototype and develop continuous improvements.

Zen is going to be around and accomplishing great things for a long time. In parallel with building out the 1-2 year roadmap (with slight adjustments as we go) described in the Zen White Paper, it will be important to have a longer term view for improvements as well so ZenCash can continue to stay at the forefront of cryptocurrency capabilities.